How I Got Data Off A Physically Corrupted Hard Drive

I have a hard drive that I am 99% sure cannot have data recovered except by sending out to a company. I tried all the usual methods (plugged into another computer internally and with USB adapter, CD boot disks, TestDisk and I am currently running Spinrite with only 550 more hours to go--I just started and it's taken 3 hours to go 11 cylinders and 47 MB of data processed!) The drive seems to lock up most programs that I have tried to see if I can read the contents of the drive

The 80 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 drive is making faintly audible unusual clicks and sounds when trying to read drive

Anyway, my main question is:

Where are the reasonable/reliable data recovery places that will work on a drive for a flat fee between $200-$300?

Let me know any first hand experiences you have had with sending a drive out to be recovered

Agreed, you might be able to get a company to do a controller swap at that rate, but if the only method to recover is with an electron microscopy or other real advanced methods... you might be looking at $2-300 per MB/GB.

Down to the hardware level there really isn't much you can do at that cost ($200-300). I use DriveSavers - very reputable, and they are easy to work with - but the cost is higher than you think. A drive recovery can go from $1000-3000 on average.

There is a flat fee company that I talked to about another drive back in July. They are located in California and they are located at http://lowcostrecovery.com

They quoted me $499 flat rate including parts for a 160 GB drive (I was asking on behalf of a friend and they decided not to do the recovery)

I will call them and see if it is a similar price for an 80 GB drive

There must be some company out there that would work on a drive for around $300--especially in this economy?

I am currently using HDD Regenerator v1.51 and it has found approx 4700 bad sectors and recovered all located bad sectors so far. This is all in the first 4.2 gigs of the hard drive (it's taken 11 hours for scan to run so far). I gave up on Spinrite when it showed the first 1% as unrecoverable after 10 hours of scanning

Anyone ever use HDD Regenerator program with good results. I am hoping it will fix enough damage so that I can quickly connect it to another computer to copy just the important files I need

I just checked the LowCostRecovery website and they are quoting a flat fee price including parts of $399 for an 80 GB drive. Here is a quote from the pricing page:

"You will NEVER be charged a service fee if we fail to get your data back. We will first examine the drive and explain the type of failure. If you give us the go ahead, we will then attempt to retrieve the data. We even give you back your old drive after the recovery for free at your request. There are no tricks or gimmicks, the price you see above is really the price you pay. If at any time you decide not to continue, you will not be charged anything for the initial retrieval attempt and we will return the drive.

The bottom line is that if we can't retrieve your data, you will not be charged a service fee for our work."

I hope it's not too good to be true, it might be worth sending it to them to see if they are reliable and stick to the price/parts terms of the deal

I might shut off the HDD Regenerator program and see if it made the hard disk temporarily bootable and than refrain from further scans to minimize wear and tear on hard drive if I am going to send it out anyway

Please keep posting any recovery companies that are inexpensive and reliable and any experiences with data recovery companies----thanks

HDD Regenerator combined with TestDisk, Acronis/Partition Magic, and Runtime Tools GetDataBack NTFS version got just about all the files recovered. I ignored Windows system files and the like though they were accessible anyway--but copied drivers folders and System32 folders in case I needed to point to it for mystery driver after fresh reinstall on new hard drive.

I plan on figuring out how to use Dell Restore partition Ghost image from this recovery and do a factory restore

Anyone done this or can point me to links that explain?
It should be able to be done because I remember making HP Recovery partition Unhidden and/or ACTIVE to do a factory re-install from another Ghost image of that partition about a year or two ago. I think I loaded it onto new hard drive in same spot as previous. Or I reformatted C Partition after recovering files, UNHID HP Recovery partition and/or set ACTIVE and restarted computer and it booted right to HP Recovery program to copy factory installed files back to reformatted C Partition. I'll try same method for Dell Recovery

It took about 36-40 hours to run HDD Regenerator and it found 15,00 bad sectors and reported them as all recovered. I tried booting up after HDD scan but drive still froze computer at POST internally and USB connected externally even with Boot CDs since it never got to scan for Boot CD with frozen POST black screen.

I ran deep scan in TestDisk and made sure all 3 partitions had correct attributes such as Primary (P) and Primary Bootable ( *) etc. Then I chose the WRITE partition option before closing TeskDisk

When I connected it to another computer externally with SATA to USB adapter I could access the Dell Utility partition and the Dell Restore partition as drive letters but the main Windows partition had no drive letter or sizes in My Computer and asked to format disk or gave RAW message (I forget).

I was able to run GetDataBackNTFS and after a couple of hours I had a files and folders list from which to copy needed files to another hard drive

When I get time I will post a new thread explaining my steps with screenshots to help others that think their drive is beyond recovery or cannot afford data recovery company

If at all possible--could the title of this thread be changed to something like:

How I Got Data Off A Physically Corrupted Hard Drive Using 5 Programs (thousands of bad sectors)

Than I will post screenshots and steps to explain what I did

I keep posting replies to this thread I started at early hours of the morning and what I think is new helpful info for other members seems to be being missed. I am sure the current title of thread is not as applicable now, nor an eye grabber or really explains true info contained in this thread (not to mention future questions or info that could be posted from other members)

When I get some much overdue sleep--I will also send this post about title change to moderators in the correct way

Are bad hard drive sectors physical damage? I might be using incorrect terminology

The main reason I am making this request is so more people see the info about what programs and methods I used to eventually recover data--this is until I can get time and rest to create a new thread and than post a link to that new thread within this original thread

They are coming within a day or two--I am swamped with work. I will try to post as many steps and screenshots as I can to recreate the method I used. Some of it was using a Boot Disk where I could not make a screenshot. I'll recreate some of the screens with that drive attached through USB-SATA adapter if that will work

HDD Regenerator was in a DOS type screen on a custom Boot CD, so there was no way to capture that and my digital camera is broken. I'll see what I can do to get as much as I can documented to help out fellow TSG members